First Strike (18 page)

And any show of weakness from the Empress would encourage the lesser clans to start thinking about overthrowing her…

“Admiral,” Sooraya said, “the Marines have secured most of the orbital stations. There was no resistance, even from the males. They’re ready to start unlocking the quantum gate now.”

“Tell them to proceed,” Tobias said, grimly. He would have preferred the enemy to attack, even if they had brought two superdreadnought squadrons to the party. Instead, the enemy seemed to be waiting. But waiting for what? If intelligence was right, there was nothing to wait
 
for
...

The hour passed slowly until the quantum gate was finally unlocked and opened to traffic. He watched a long line of freighters slowly making their way out of the system, some of them no doubt carrying important Funks who had paid heavily for passage away from the human ships. Some of the transmissions they’d intercepted from the planet below spoke of civil unrest, even of frantic males turning on females. The Funks were far from the only inhabitants of the system. Some of their client races would turn on their masters as soon as they realised that there was a chance at freedom. Or maybe the Funks would start lashing out at the others as soon as they realised they were about to lose their grip on the planet.

“Admiral,” Sooraya said, sharply, “two of the Funk starships just jumped out. The third apparently cloaked and vanished. We can't track it at this range.”

Tobias frowned, although in truth he’d expected it for some time. Leaving a picket in the system to watch the human ships was sound tactical doctrine, one of the aspects of Galactic thought that humanity agreed with wholeheartedly. The Hegemony ship would probably be able to evade capture or destruction as long as she was careful, transmitting burst messages back to her high command. No doubt the other ships would serve as pickets elsewhere, heading back towards their next major system.

“Understood,” he said. “Remind all ships to be on their guard. We have to assume that the Funks will attempt to attack our ships if they feel that they have an advantage.”

He hesitated, and then keyed his console, opening up a link to Brigadier Jones. “I want to try to prevent the rioting from destroying too many lives and properties,” he said, shortly. “Can your Marines go down there and protect the population?”

“We can protect some of the larger cities, but not easily,” Jones said, after a moment. “We don’t have the manpower to cover the entire planet and… Admiral, there
 
will
 
be civilian casualties. Stunners designed to work on humans won’t work so well on other races.”

Tobias winced. The Marines had never been intended to serve as a peacekeeping force; rather, they’d been designed to serve as the tip of Earth’s spear. Once national forces moved into in place, they’d have some reinforcements, but the latest from Earth warned that the national populations were reacting strongly against deploying such units away from their homelands. Everyone wanted Earth defended first.

And a single…
 
incident
…
 
could provide the Funks with a political windfall. They’d already picked up transmissions from Galactic reporters, who’d suddenly found themselves watching the greatest story for the last thousand years. Trying to save the planet’s population could be disastrous; not trying to save the planet’s population could be worse. At least they could try…

“Prepare your men for deployment,” he finally ordered. Half of the Marines had been scattered out over the orbital platforms. They’d have to be recalled once they transferred the prisoners to a harmless freighter. Even the Funks wouldn't try to argue with a man in powered combat armor. “And warn them to be careful.”

It was an unnecessary order and he knew it. The Hegemony had been keen to keep its clients and outside visitors disarmed, but it didn't take more than a little ingenuity to come up with makeshift weapons. Funk troops stationed on the planet itself might be going a little crazy if they felt they’d been abandoned by the Empress and her navy. He could be sending the outnumbered Marines into a death trap.

But there was little choice.

“And send some of the reporters down with them,” he added. “We might at least try to get good press out of the incident.”
 

The Hegemony’s cities were strange to human eyes, even though they had been constructed from modern materials. They reassembled giant anthills constructed from mud, joined by roads that looked out of place compared to the buildings. Behind them, on the outskirts of the city, were buildings that had clearly been built to a different set of aesthetics. Towering spires rose up to greet the sunlight, outlined by pillars of smoke rising up towards the sky. The live feed from the advance drones left no room for doubt; the remainder of the population was rising up against the Funks.

Conrad winced as the shuttles screamed down towards the center of the city. It had an unpronounceable name – hiss, squeak, hiss, as far as he could tell – and so the Marines had nicknamed it the Mud Palace, but there was no mistaking its role. Nor was there any mistaking the crowds laying siege to the building and threatening to break inside and lynch the remaining Funks. The aristocrats who had ruled the planet for so long had fled, but the junior bureaucrats had remained. And if they didn't save them from their own victims…

Some of the Marines had wondered out loud why they were bothering to risk their lives saving Funks. Conrad had reprimanded them, pointing out that even if some Funks were evil little shits, the remainder of the species was hardly indictable for their crimes. Besides, there was the question of perception. If humanity acted to save its enemies, it should make for some good press among the Galactics. Maybe the Funks would see humanity as an honourable enemy, rather than a race they could pick on whenever they felt evil. Privately, Conrad doubted it, but it wasn't his choice. The Admiral had made his orders quite clear.

“Prepare for drop,” he ordered. Coming in so close to the city was a deadly risk – all it would take was a single HVM and the shuttle and its Marines would be scattered in pieces over several miles – but there had been no other choice. Intelligence had provided maps of the city, yet getting from the outskirts to the Mud Palace would have taken too long even if no one put any obstacles in their way. The drone feed showed barricades being constructed by rebels within the city itself, while large columns of farmers and settlers from the countryside were advancing towards the home of their tormentors. “On my mark…”

He’d found himself effectively promoted in the wake of the battle on Terra Nova, as a result of so many officers being killed in the fighting. Typically, the actual rank and increased pay
 
hadn't
 
caught up with him, although it wasn't as if he had anything to spend it on while serving with the fleet. There had been little time for shore leave on Terra Nova, but they had managed a few hours in the city before departing – and no one had expected them to pay for anything. Some of the younger Marines had enjoyed themselves so thoroughly that Conrad had had to chew them out for straggling back to the spaceport late. If they’d had to leave ahead of time, he’d warned them, they would have been left behind and declared AWOL.

“Now,” he ordered. The shunt caught him and propelled him through the hatch, falling down towards the planet below. His datanet came active as the remainder of his unit spilled out behind him, already falling into formation. The alien city was far larger to his naked eyes than it had seemed on the drone feed, a fairly common problem. Military maps were very detailed, but they were never quite the same as the terrain. He’d seen plenty of senior officers throwing fits because the map said that their subordinates should be advancing far quicker than they actually were, if only because the map hadn't mentioned that the terrain was covered in mud.

The antigravity field slowed his fall as the Marines fell around the Mud Palace. It was surrounded by a great teeming mass of intelligent life, some humanoid and others so alien that it was surprising to see them in person. One was nothing more than a mass of tentacles mated to a shell and a pair of large, almost cartoonish eyes. He’d seen one of those aliens before, but it took him a moment to remember that it had been in a post-First Contact remake of
 
Star Trek
. The movie had bombed, if he recalled correctly. Spock looked much less impressive when compared to
 
genuine
 
aliens.

He touched down and raised his rifle, ready for anything. The last report they’d had from the ground was that the Hegemony soldiers had been ordered to return to barracks, but not all of them had obeyed orders. They were supposed to be utterly faithful to their queens, the females who ran their lives, yet when passions ran high the females tended to lose control of their men. His lips twitched into a smile as they advanced towards the gates, despite the danger. The Funks were closer to human than they would have liked to admit.

The gateway was barred by a glittering force field, sparking and crackling as the mass of aliens pressed against it. Some of them would have been injured as the pressure on the field slowly increased, but that didn't seem to stop them. Judging from the brief reports flickering across the datanet, any Funk outside their own districts would be lucky to live through the day without being murdered by the rest of the population. Indeed, two of the Funk districts appeared to be having their own civil war. The lesser clans would have been outraged at how quickly the planet had been lost, along with their vast investments. It wouldn't be long before their outrage manifested in plots against the Empress.

A set of Funks were watching the crowd nervously, barely heeding the Marines sidling up behind them. Conrad couldn't blame them for being worried; they carried no weapons, as ordered by the human occupation authority, and the crowd would certainly tear them limb from limb if they got their hands on them. He’d never been on the ground during a riot, but some of the older Royal Marines had been in Iraq or Afghanistan and their stories had been horrific. Some of their comrades had died because of restrictive ROE that prohibited firing back even when there was a clear and present threat to their lives. At least Conrad’s orders were a little looser.

One of the Funks turned to look at the Marines. She seemed almost glad to see them, which had to be a first. They’d been warned, time and time again, that human body language didn't always match the Galactics, but Conrad was sure of it. Her hissing voice, according to his suit’s analysis program, was definitely relieved. Someone else would be taking responsibility for the safety of the Mud Palace.

“Go inside,” Conrad ordered. The second detachment of Marines was already inside, securing the building and its people. They’d probably lost their chance to capture the Mud Palace’s files before the Funks destroyed them, but intelligence’s computer experts would take a look at them and see what they could pull out of the systems. Some of the Funks probably had computer skills to match any human hacker, yet they might not have been allowed to rig the systems to completely wipe everything. Or so ONI had suggested. “We’ll provide protection from the crowd.”

Beyond the walls, he could see flames rising up in the distance. The rebels had torched a number of buildings, including one with a title that translated as Human Resources. It took Conrad a moment to realise that it was the Funk’s version of a labour exchange, a place where unemployed Funks – or aliens – were ordered to work on specific projects, no matter how unsuited they were to the job. On Terra Nova, the Funks had tried to push humans into working as slaves – here, it proved that they did the same to every race under their control. No doubt someone could get some good propaganda out of that, once the city had quietened down a little. Maybe the Galactics would be outraged at how the Funks had treated other life forms.

The forcefield started to glow brighter, a sure sign that it was on the verge of collapse. Conrad barked orders and the Marines advanced, weapons at the ready. A quick check through the combat database revealed that there were no less than nineteen different races represented in the crowd, ranging from aliens so fragile that a stun burst would kill them to aliens tough enough to be able to tear apart an unarmored human. Conrad cursed under his breath as the Funk guards fled back towards the building, knowing that there would definitely be casualties. None of the crowd seemed to be carrying anything more dangerous than neural whips – designed by the Funks for use on reluctant slaves – which meant that the Marines themselves were probably in no danger. The real problem would be avoiding mass slaughter if the crowd pushed over them.

He checked the datanet as the forcefield started to fail. Other Marine units had landed in the city, securing defence posts and military buildings, but there were none close enough to aid him if the shit hit the fan. The shuttles were broadcasting warnings over the planetary communications network, urging everyone to remain in their homes and stay off the streets, but as far as he could tell no one was actually listening. Officially, the city had upwards of five million residents and they all seemed to be gathered outside the gates. The Hegemony would probably have started using their version of sleepy gas and to hell with the consequences, but humanity didn't have that option. Too many civilians would die.

“The forcefield is going,” one of the Marines said. Conrad barely knew him; he’d been transferred over from another company to make up the shortfall. The Federation Marines hadn't been designed for rapid expansion and there were almost no reserves, something that would have to be rectified in the future. Sergeants were often asked to put forward their view on what had worked – and what hadn't – in post-combat reviews and he was already planning a scathing attack on the political leaders who had forbidden the Marines more than ten thousand soldiers at any one time. “Here they come...”

The forcefield gave one final crackle and failed. There was a roar of triumph from the crowd as it lunged forward, smashing through the gate as through it were built of paper. Conrad cursed again and started to broadcast the recorded message, even though he knew it would be useless. Even if the people at the front of the crowd had thought better of it and wanted to break free, the ones behind them would keep pressing them onwards. The training they’d had for mob situations had been limited, but the instructors had warned them that many injuries occurred when someone fell to the ground and was trampled under the crowd’s feet before they could get back up. Some of the aliens in the mob were child-sized, small enough that their larger fellows might knock them down without even noticing. Conrad shivered as the mob closed in. People were about to die.

“Link arms,” he ordered. The Marines braced themselves, taking up positions that would allow them to halt the mob without – he hoped – using their augmented strength. He caught a glimpse of an alien mouth, green and disgusting, before the aliens slammed into the Marines. The pressure was great enough to push the line back before they could compensate, pushing back as gently as they could. Conrad forced himself to watch as the aliens pressed against his suit, a multitude of different hands tearing away at the metal. They couldn't get in, he kept reminding himself, but it was no reassurance. It was impossible to escape a sense of claustrophobia as hands clawed at his suit.

“Disengage your close interface,” one of the Marines suggested. Conrad nodded in agreement. The interface with the suit allowed the Marines to wear their armor as if it were part of them, but it worked
 
too
 
well for mob situations. Even the most focused Marine found it hard to escape the conviction that the crowd was tearing at his unprotected skin. It would be dangerous to go into combat without it, but they could reengage at any moment. “They can’t get to you without it.”

He was wrong, Conrad suspected. The crowd, balked at the gate, was trying to scramble over the wall. It was covered in wire and sharp metal prongs that would tear away at unprotected flesh, but so was the fence around Marine bases and
 
that
 
didn't stop Marines sneaking out for a night on the town. The crowd pressure would force them onwards unless they were stopped, yet how could they stop them without resorting to live weapons? Two of the shuttles made passes over the crowd at terrifyingly low height, but most of the crowd wasn't discouraged. Anyone at the rear who wanted to break free and go home could have done it by now. The remainder wanted revenge on the Funks – and God help the humans who were trying to save them.

“We’re going to lose this unless we use live weapons,” he said, into the datanet. He glanced backwards, at the Mud Palace. God alone knew how many Funks lived there. “I think we need to start flying their targets out of the mob’s reach.”

An explosion, billowing up in the distance, underlined his words. “And I suggest that you hurry,” he added. Parts of the wall were starting to crumble. Once they fell, the Marines would have no choice, but to disengage and retreat back to the Mud Palace, if they could without hurting the crowd. A Marine who’d been knocked down would have to wait until the crowd dispersed before he could escape. “We don’t have much time left.”

The crowd howled in rage as the first shuttle came in and hovered above the roof of the Mud Palace, using tractor beams to pick up the Funks and a handful of their collaborators. Conrad checked the datanet, which reported that there were over two hundred Funks in the Mud Palace, including some children. Humans brought their children with them on assignment too, although he was surprised that the Funks had brought male children away from their clans. Perhaps the Funks on the planet had ambitions to form a clan of their own. What little he’d heard about the clan system suggested that it was possible, but the other clans wouldn’t be too happy about it.

His suit shook as the first rock crashed down on his helmet. The crowd was pushing harder, throwing rocks and bottles towards the Marines. One bottle was filled with petrol and set on fire, exploding just behind the Marine line. It wasn't enough to break through armor that could stand off bullets and even missiles, but it was dangerous to the crowd. Conrad detailed a pair of Marines to stamp out the fire, even though it would suggest that they were intimidated by the flames. The irony didn't escape him; they were working to protect a crowd that was trying to kill them. If they hadn't been wearing armor, they would have had to resort to live weapons by now.